


This Endless Summer Afternoon

by starcut_sand



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Light Angst, Romance, but also saying that it's a steph character study wouldn't be too far off, depending on your definition of angst idk, kinda sorta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 21:30:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18747496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starcut_sand/pseuds/starcut_sand
Summary: Steph spins on her heel. Standing behind her, looking distinctly uncomfortable, is Robin. No sign of Batman, but that doesn’t mean much, because it’s Batman.“No,” she says. “No, no no no. I got here first. Find your own roof.”(Tim and Steph, in five parts.)





	This Endless Summer Afternoon

**1.**

Stephanie Brown has been Spoiler for a good six months now, and she thinks she’s gotten into the routine of it. Make sure her mom won’t find out before she leaves, always double check to make sure the suspect _actually_ committed a crime, make sure she keeps track of where everyone is in a fight, and avoid Batman as much as possible (this last one isn’t a necessity, but she doesn’t like having to deal with his lectures). So far, she’s been doing okay. In her opinion.

Nobody else really shares her opinion, but that doesn’t bother her as much as it maybe should. Most people don’t know she’s Spoiler, and the people that do- well, Batman has a stick up his ass, and she hit Robin in the face with a brick, so they’re not overly fond of her. The Robin one is kind of her fault, but in her defense, he snuck up on her.

Whatever.

Either way, she doesn’t care that much. Not when she’s out here, on top of a warehouse and able to see five blocks away. The wind is in her hair and she’s got a couple minutes before the drug deal is supposed to begin. It’s a warm night, and the orange glow of streetlights reflect into the harbor. It’s about as peaceful as Gotham gets. Steph takes a minute to just watch the ripples.

“Hey.”

Steph spins on her heel. Standing behind her, looking distinctly uncomfortable, is Robin. No sign of Batman, but that doesn’t mean much, because it’s Batman.

“No,” she says. “No, no no no. I got here first. Find your own roof.”

Robin blinks, and she wonders how his mask can do that. Is it glued onto his face or something?

“Um,” he says.

“Scoot,” she says, as firmly as she can. It occurs to her that she should have used a better word than scoot. Oh, well, too late to back down now. She holds her glare.

“I’m kind of… assigned to this roof,” Robin says. “By Batman.” he collects himself here, and stands taller. She’s still taller than him, but it does make him look more confident. “Yeah. Batman. I can’t leave.”

“Did he send you to spy on me?” She asks. “Because you can tell him that I’m handling it, and that he can go-”

“He’s not spying on you!” Robin puts his hands up defensively, then hesitates. “I don’t _think_ he’s spying on you.”

Steph looks at him, deadpan. “Now there’s a vote of confidence.”

“He didn’t send me here to spy on you,” he plows on, “I’m here for the drug deal. Same as you, probably.”

Stephanie doesn’t say anything because she doesn’t like that he’s right. He doesn’t seem to be bragging about it, anyway. He’s looking past her, into the harbor waters.

“What were you looking at?”

Steph weighs her options- not tell him and seem super suspicious, or do tell him and seem super lame. Batman and his sidekicks are a total boys club, with the exception of Batgirl- and she hasn’t been seen in a year. Stephanie doubts that they take time to look at the lights on the water. Too busy being macho or whatever. Still, if she doesn’t tell him, she’ll seem even weirder.

She goes with the lesser of two evils. “The water,” she says. “With the lights on it. It almost makes Gotham seem nice.”

Robin stares at her, then at the water. She can’t tell what he’s thinking. Damn bats.

“I guess it does,” he says, and call her crazy, but it almost sounds like he’s agreeing with her. Like, not judging her and just agreeing to sound nice, but actually agreeing. She doesn’t know what to say to that, so she doesn’t say anything, following his gaze to the water.

“You should see the view from the business district,” he says.

“What?”

“The buildings are higher there. You can see the whole city. It’s…” he trails off, biting his lip. “It makes Gotham look nice too.”

Steph does that not-laugh thing, a huff of acknowledgement. She doesn’t have a grappling hook or anything. She can’t get up to the rooftops of the business district. But he didn’t mean it in a mean way, she can tell. It’s an olive branch.

“If you told that to anyone outside of Gotham, they’d think you were crazy,” she says.

“Yeah, they do,” he says, a fond smile on his face. “Or even just people in Gotham, who don’t, you know, go on rooftops on a daily basis.”

“Or work in the business district. I bet Bruce Wayne gets it.”

Robin smiles. “Yeah. But most people aren’t Bruce Wayne.”

“I guess not,” she says.

They fall silent for a bit, still staring at the water.

“For what it’s worth,” he says. “I think you’re doing pretty good.”

Steph looks at him, judging whether he’s sincere or not before she responds. “Thanks.”

“I mean, you could use training- but that’s not like, a bad thing. I’m still training. And Batman-”

Steph grins. “Stop while you’re ahead, boy wonder.”

Robin shuts up. Steph smiles at him, an olive branch of her own, just so she’s sure he gets that she’s not actually mad. “So,” she says. “The drug deal?”

“Right.” he says. “We could… do it together?”

“Sure,” Steph says. And this might be a truce, but she’s still competitive, so she adds, “If you can keep up.”

Robin snorts. “Like, whoever gets the most guys wins?”

“Sure,” she says again.

“Alright, fine,” he says. “On one condition: no bricks. That counts as cheating.”

“No promises.”

(She ends up losing, but it’s fine, she’ll win next time. She tells him so, sealing firm the idea that there will be a next time.)

 

**2.**

“I totally could.”

“You totally couldn’t.”

“Could.”

“Couldn’t.”

“Ugh,” Cass says, draped over the side of Steph’s couch. “This is torture.”

“I’m just saying he couldn’t!” Steph gestures faux-indignantly at Tim, who’s sitting on the floor eating out of a bag of popcorn. “Nightwing, maybe, but he’s more flexible.”

“Well, who do you think trained me?” Tim pipes up from the floor.

“Batman,” Steph deadpans. “I’m just saying, I’ve seen you do yoga. No way are you able to do a back handspring.”

“You think Batman didn’t teach me how to do a back handspring? He taught me how to run on top of a giant ball and steer it effectively.”

Steph does a double take. “O- wait-” she squints at him, trying to tell if he’s joking. “...Okay, I can buy that, actually, Batman’s weird. But that’s not the point. Maybe he _tried_ to teach you-”

“He _did_ teach me-”

“-But your overall unflexibleness was too great. He had to move on to other things, like teaching you how to kill a man twelve different ways.”

“Ten,” Tim says idly.

Steph laughs. “Of course he actually did that.”

“They’re opening a Batman restaurant.” Cass doesn’t look up from her phone to say this.

“What?”

“A Batman restaurant. Called BatBurger.”

“Oh, Batman’s gonna _hate_ that,” Tim says. “How do you know?”

“Nightwing,” Cass says, waving her phone at them. “I got a text.”

“Well, I know what _we’re_ doing after patrol,” Steph says. Tim gives her a look.

“Batman is supposed to be mysterious. That’s why he’s scary. Do you really think we should-”

“C’mon, live a little,” Steph says. “It’s just a restaurant. Besides, it could be like a symbol of hope. A reminder that he’s out there.”

“Like McDonalds,” Cass supplies. Steph nods. “Yeah, like McDonalds, but more heroic.”

Tim rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling in that way that Steph knows he’s on board. “Fine,” he says. “But if I can do a back handspring, you’re buying.”

“Fine,” Steph says. “I’ll tell you in advance, I want a milkshake.”

 

**3.**

They’re on top of the tallest WE building in the business district, legs dangling down over the side. If it weren’t for Steph’s cape, she’d probably be freezing- the Wayne Enterprises building is over five hundred feet tall, it’s the middle of the night, _and_ it’s windy out. The insulation on her suit is the only thing keeping her warm- well, not the only thing.

The other thing is her boyfriend sitting next to her, eating french fries and watching the view. He looks calm, for once.

Steph looks at the glittering lights of the city, and Gotham is beautiful, like a watercolor painting. She knows if she gets closer she’ll start to notice all the flaws, but from here it’s a blinking array of light and darkness.

“What was it like the first time you came up here?” she asks idly. Tim doesn’t respond right away.

“I guess… I was pretty nervous, because we were so high up,” he says. “But I didn’t wanna show it because Batman was there, and you know.”

“Yeah,” Steph says. She understands all too well the way Batman always seems to be silently challenging you, asking if that’s all you can do.

“It was nice though,” he says. “I mean, you know those times when you just fall in love with this all over again?”

“What, superheroism?”

“Yeah.” Tim, to his credit, doesn’t point out that the technical term is ‘vigilantism.’ “It was like that. Being that high up, and the adrenaline, and the lights...”

“Yeah,” Steph says. “It’s pretty great.”

“Better when I have someone to share it with that’s not Batman,” Tim says, smiling over at her. Steph smiles back.

“Don’t let Batman catch you saying that. He might take away your computer privileges.”

“Shut up, I’m trying to have a moment.”

“Why don’t you make me shut up?” Steph is teasing and not-teasing at the same time. Still, she’s not caught off guard when he leans forward and kisses her.

It’s not their first kiss, but it’s a good one. Steph is several hundred feet off the ground, sitting on the edge of a building on a windy night, and yet she’s never felt more grounded, more in control of herself than when she kisses him. It’s as if everything comes into focus all at once. The concrete is cold and hard under her legs. Stray hair strands loose from her ponytail blow across her face. Tim’s so close to her she can feel his body heat. She closes her eyes, reveling in the feeling of a moment that’s hers and no one else’s.

 _I could go on like this forever_ is a dangerous thought, especially in their line of business. But Steph is nothing if not reckless.

 

**4.**

Steph closes her eyes, and listens to the rattle of the van, feeling the bumpy road underneath her seat.

It’s been three hours since she and Dr. Thompkins got out of the airport, and they’ve been driving ever since. Steph thought it would be more awkward than it is- she doesn’t know Dr. Thompkins that well, and there’s a lot of shit that just went down that they’re both dancing around. But, maybe for that very reason, it isn’t awkward. They’re both lost in thought.

Good, because she’s running on autopilot right now. She’s not sure she could carry a conversation if she tried. She keeps going over what just happened in her head- _I started a gang war, I nearly died, I ran away from Gotham. No one knows where I am. No one knows I’m alive._ It isn’t sinking in just yet. Any moment now, she’d open up her eyes and be in bed, and she’d go to get dressed and notice that her Robin outfit is lying on the floor of her closet again, as she did so often. She’d frantically hide it and sternly tell herself that she would never do that again, no matter how tired she was when she got back from patrol. She couldn’t risk her mom finding out.

 _Ba-bump._ A bump in the road shakes the car. Steph opens her eyes, squinting at the sunlight- at some point, they’d taken a turn, and now they’re driving straight into the sun. _West,_ her mind supplies, because it’s the afternoon. She flips down her sun visor, and turns to look out the side window instead. Africa _is_ beautiful, she supposes. Very different from Gotham, but still beautiful.

It occurs to her that this is the first time she’s been out of America.

“I’m going to stop for food,” Dr. Thompkins says, breaking her out of her thoughts. “Do you want anything?”

“I’m good,” Steph says.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Steph says, resolutely looking out the window. Her eyes are stinging, but she doesn’t want to cry in front of an almost-stranger.

She’s halfway around the world from home and everyone she loved thinks she’s dead. Her mom, her boyfriend- they’re all mourning now.

She wonders what the funeral will be like.

Dr. Thompkins pulls into a gas station and turns the keys. The white noise of the engine suddenly cuts out, leaving them in silence. “Are you coming in?” she asks.

“No,” Steph says. She doesn’t have the energy to say anything else.

Dr. Thompkins studies her. “I’ll only be a minute,” she says finally, and gets out of the car.

Steph waits until she’s in the store, then picks up Dr. Thompkins’ phone. Breathes on the screen to see the smudges of an entry code, taps it in, and pulls up Google.

Typing ‘tim drake’ in the search bar is harder than it should be, but a morbid curiosity keeps her going. She hits the search key, and holds her breath as the results are pulled up.

He hasn’t posted anything on social media in a couple days, but down in the ‘related’ section, there’s a small post from Dr. Thompkins’ own clinic that makes her blood run cold.

Tim’s dad is dead.

He’s just one on the list. Not even the first on the list. She recognizes some of the other names, vaguely, but his name stands out from the rest.

She doesn’t look at any more results. Instead, she closes the tab and clears the search history, putting the phone back where it was.

Tim’s dad is dead and it’s her fault. People are dead and it’s her fault. She started that war and then she ran away from it. And now she’s sitting in a car in a gas station parking lot in Africa, the sun warming her skin through the window.

“You really fucked up this time, Steph,” she says aloud to the empty van.

Maybe it’s starting to sink in, now, that nothing will ever be the same again.

 

**5.**

“Stephanie Brown, here for Tim Drake.”

The receptionist nods, and presses her intercom. “Mister Drake, a Stephanie Brown is here for you?”

There’s static on the other end, and after a pause a second too long, Tim’s voice filters through. “Thanks. You can send her in.”

Steph flashes a quick, fake smile at the receptionist lady and moves past her into the room that has Tim’s name on the door, next to the label ‘C.E.O.’

It looks wrong, like some kind of twisted dream. She’d known for weeks that Tim had taken over Wayne Enterprises, knew more than most about why he’d done it, but she couldn’t shake the memory that had been following her around ever since she’d found out. Both of them, on her couch, trying and failing to eat chips upside down while he complained about his parents. “I mean, I know they love me and whatever,” he’d said. “It’s just, they think I want to be some perfect little businessman to take over the company when I grow up.”

Steph had laughed. “Have they met you?” she’d asked. “You wouldn’t last a week in a business suit.”

“Right?” he’d demanded, but he was smiling too.

She wonders now if she hadn’t known him as well as she’d thought, or if he was doing this despite his own wishes. If she did know Tim, the second option was pretty likely.

She knows Tim. Even after all this time, she knows Tim.

She pushes open the door, and as usual, dumb words fall out of her mouth. “Your hair is the same.”

Tim looks nonplussed. “So… is yours?”

“I mean, I figured you might cut it. You know, to go with your responsible businessman image.”

Tim makes a face. “Are you kidding? This hair is keeping me grounded. It’s the only way I can remember who I am.”

Steph smiles. Something inside of her had loosened as soon as he’d made the face. It’s definitely Tim sitting in front of her, despite the fact that he’s wearing a business suit at a fancy desk. “And who are you?” she says, leaning on the back of the guest chair and old routine.

“A skateboarder, first and foremost,” Tim says. “I’m a rebel.”

“A rebel in a three thousand dollar business suit.”

“How’d you know it was three thousand?” Tim looks genuinely confused, and Steph gives him an incredulous look. “Oh my God, I was _joking,_ ” she says. “You’re kidding. Three thousand?”

“Well.” Tim says, looking vaguely uncomfortable now. Steph is reminded of Bruce, the way he gets whenever he’s forced into having emotions. “I mean, that’s pretty cheap for brand name…”

He trails off at her look.

“You’ve lost it,” she says. “I- I need to Lion King you or something.” At Tim’s confused look, she puts on a deep voice. “Remember… who you are…”

Tim gives a half-snort, and she counts it as a win.

 

**Author's Note:**

> this is what happens when you feel like writing and you listen to Hard Feelings on repeat for like two days  
> If you leave a comment I /will/ respond to your comment and I /will/ gush about it. I'm super nice, dw :)


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